Open question: what books have you found to be intellectually/emotionally fulfilling or just worthwhile in general that do not hinge upon or include any darkness, tragedy, or sadness? Or which don't teeter at the edge of catastrophe (like Shakespearean comedies)?
I just ask because when I think of examples, basically the vast majority of books I know have to be excluded. Only a couple books come to mind, mainly Tristram Shandy, which I think is terrific and enjoyable because it just effuses goodwill. Also I think some Nicholson Baker novels like The Mezzanine and Vox are great without really having any dark parts within them. And writers doing kind of cerebral experiments, like Borges and Calvino, also seem to fit the bill sometimes.
Adam Sanders
I guess I'll take the lack of response as proof that people really don't read literature that isn't fundamentally bleak.
Isaiah Bennett
klug
Brayden Stewart
Guy de Maupassant short stories
John Ross
Some ideas:
In Praise Of Older Women is very positive about sexuality and I wish I would've read it earlier, I may have not been such a dork.
Classic adventure stories work too, I love The Long Ships for that. Walter Moers wrote many highly original adventure/fantasy Zamonien books that get more mature with each book, they're a little bit like Pratchett, but less magicians and D&D, more originality.
In a similar vein, The Once And Future King is amazing, but the later books get darker.
The Tender Bar is a bit of a forgotten book that just oozes warm nostalgia.
If you enjoy Borges' and Calvino's playful vibe you should enjoy Flann O'Brien.
Alexander Kelly
Maxim Gorky's In The World. Sure it depicts bleak lives but it's a kind sort of naturalism. Perhaps because of the coming-of-age aspect.
Jacques the Fatalist maybe.
Jaxson Stewart
Thomas Aquinas's commentary on Aristotle's "De Interpretatione."
Angel Rivera
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Austin Hill
The Necklace a SHIT
Sebastian Davis
I was going to say Crow Fair by McGuane, because he's pretty funny. But then i remembered that literally all of them are sad.
Henry Perry
peer gynt is a play that probably will work for you
but as far as the whole "why does all art have to be bleak" thing, it's because most learning and catharsis comes through mistakes and wrongs, the aestheticization of pleasure is just pornography
Blake Evans
>the aestheticization of pleasure is just pornography lmao nigga u sexually repressed or smth
James Sanchez
I mean, I understand the purpose of focusing on tragedy and sadness and it's pretty straightforward to see why it's moving and meaningful. And just porn is just porn, dude. My point is that some books are just as fulfilling without kneeling at the altar of misery. In fact, as an exercise it seems almost more difficult to write something that's joyful in some kind of ameliorating way. In any case, things are disproportionately skewed towards unhappy content, so I just wanted to see what else was out there. And then soon I'll found my own movement against the "sad canon"!
Thanks for the rec, though.
Adrian Evans
Foucault's Discipline & Punish.
Samuel White
Tartuffe?
Jacob Scott
>learning and catharsis comes through mistakes and wrongs Spoken like a true beta male.
No my dude it comes through study and play and you don't have to play like a retard to learn. You start out playing and studying more generally and then you go into details.
the aestheticization of bleakness is just beta male sentimentality. Where is the fucking will to power? Cmon, let's go!
Grayson Ramirez
#CanonSoSad
Chase Wood
Anathem was so delicious imo.
Angel Ramirez
Can I ask how Tristram Shandy doesn't imply tragedy? I'm reading it right now, and am only currently on Book II, but it seems like the point of the whole thing is that Tristram can't seem to arrive at anything, but it hopelessly caught in endless digression (much like life). Isn't that ultimately tragic, even if the tone is humorous?
Levi Wood
The presence of Uncle Toby redeems the sins of the world.
Nathaniel Gonzalez
ok. ok. wow. just... ok. violence/darkness is just hardwired to be interesting to the human brain. if you have a gymnasium with 4 corners - a ping pong game in one corner, two lovers kissing in one corner, a game of poker in another corner, and a fight breaking out in one corner, the corner with the fight will get 100% of the attention. do you seriously fucking believe anyone is gonna unironically read a fiction book that has zero conflict, where everything is peachy, and it's not some super creepy utopian society (which in itself would be quite bleak/dark in its own way)? fuck you. you fucking imbecile. you fucking moron. why would you even ask that stupid fucking question? get the fuck off my board
Dylan Nelson
At Swim-Two-Birds
Tyler Nguyen
I don't think the digression is really implicitly tragic. Mostly it's fun, and yeah, he's not really achieving what he sets out to do, but that doesn't really breed any unhappiness or sense of failure. Though things don't go as planned, so much is gained in how he exalts the tangential; he just has so much goodwill and such a sense for others that he can't even focus his biography on himself. And, of course, so much this: Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim are truly the agents of human goodness.
Maybe you can rework that gymnasium metaphor a bit when you go back to school on Monday. C-